Hinting, is anyone still using it?

Mike Duggan
Mike Duggan Posts: 247
in Font Technology
Just curious to know, if anyone is still using hinting, or probably autohinting still? I did notice a post about some new tools for autohinting Variable fonts, but wondering have we reached the point yet that its just not needed anymore

Comments

  • Todd Johnson
    Todd Johnson Posts: 21
    My opinion, yes, still needed. I use TTFAutohint, then check and adjust with YGT. 
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,692
    edited June 25
    By default, our font build tool uses TTFAutohint. Coincidentally, Mike, I was thinking about you in this context a couple of days ago, because I recall you did some tests of different configuration options for TTFAutohint. Our build tools can take hinting and gasp table configuration input, but to date I have just run them with default settings. I was thinking I might ask you to review the output when I have a budget for consulting, and see if the results can be improved by tweaking the configuration.
  • Aaron Bell
    Aaron Bell Posts: 97
    I did a hinting project 2 weeks ago.

    Given the long tail of low resolution devices I think there will still be value in manual hinting for quite some time still. And I feel it especially so when I look at the poor output of autohinters. Better not to hint at all than use tools that only really work on Latin, and general sans-serif.
  • Mike Duggan
    Mike Duggan Posts: 247
    thanks Aaron & John! John, keep in touch if you need this at any point. Aaron I agree, and yes it does appear to be a very long tail. Variable font hinting is something that VTT handles well, but as far as I recall TTFautohint doesn't handle Variable fonts, so was curious about how folks include hinting in any new variable fonts.

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